I think that, if the Iranian people can ever get rid of this regime, they will drop Islam. I don't know if they will become Christian but the regime has thoroughly discredited Islam. I have read speculation about this elsewhere.

That's the problem with being a minority religion in a theocracy. No matter how protected your status, you still exist at the pleasure of the leadership and are a convenient scapegoat in difficult times.

The love of God is a concept which seems to Islamic captives as welcome as water to a man dying of thirst. These dealers in the water of God's love are destroying the cruel Islamic ideology. Grace by faith in Jesus does remove the legal claims of Mohamed's god to kill everyone.

As long as the Christians in Iran don't make this about politics, there's a curious hope even in the midst of the persecution. In China, for instance, house churches are a surprisingly large phenomena, increasingly pointing towards the Far East as the next center of the global Christian faith.

In Medieval Japan, however, the burgeoning Christianity did have a political element to it, and was pretty much wiped out.

That's the way of Christianity in the midst of persecution since the days of the Roman Empire. Turning the other cheek often means the blood of martyrs becomes the seed of the church.

But I do pray for those in Iran facing a long season of incredible persecution. Given the increasing dissatisfaction with the religious leadership there, it'd be interesting to see if Iran becomes a place of Christian renewal in coming centuries.

Actually, Paddy, the problems Christianity ran into during its early years in Japan and Rome weren't because Christians failed to stay out of politics, but because staying out of politics is impossible in nations where the official religion and the government are one and the same.

To a Roman, religion = culture = government. You couldn't refuse to offer at least token homage to Roman gods without repudiating the government itself. The same essentially held for feudal Japan, where the shogunate enforced a particular pro-government faith and suppressed others.

It seems to me that Iran's much like Rome and Japan, in that you can't possibly be Christian without implicitly rejecting the legitimacy of a Muslim theocracy. At best, you can believe that the government is entitled to its authority but totally wrong about the basis for that authority.

Our next president had better have some serious foreign policy background.

The most compelling rebuttal Obama made against any of the vast array of arguments marshaled against him was against that one, when he said that judgment was more important than experience. He was right; an Obama who had served decades in the Senate would have made a better President only in that he wouldn't be limber enough to show such profound obeisance to foreign tyrants. You know what you call somebody who Democrats think has the years of foreign policy experience that leads to success in international relations? "Joe Biden".

Palin's judgment is sound. If a candidate emerges with equally sound judgment and superior experience, fine - but as you say, who?

Acccccccctually, Revenant there's intentional politics and resistant politics. In Feudal Japan there was both a move by the West to influence the politics through the priests, as well as decided geographic, and thus competing loyalties. When a winning side wishes to take care of a foe, they take care of a religious affiliation. Even more, the Western nations used their own religious and political battles in their attempts to gain influence in Japan, leading to all kinds of sad persecution, that was religious but had decided political goals.

With Rome, not sacrificing was a political act of sorts, but if you read all the writings of the early church you know they were intentionally not trying to make it political. They repeatedly say they prayed for the emperor, etc. They made a strong point saying they were good citizens, in support of the order of the Empire, and their lack of sacrificing was intentionally a religious and not a political act.

We see this throughout church history with some movements being explicitly political and other movements being perceived as political but then intentionally moving to avoid political action. For instance, George Fox implemented a strong pacifism with the Quakers so as to intentionally avoid being lumped in with the many various overtly political religious movements of 17th century England.

They made a strong point saying they were good citizens, in support of the order of the Empire, and their lack of sacrificing was intentionally a religious and not a political act.

To the *Christians* it was a religious and not a political act, sure. The point is that, to the Romans, saying "it is a religious act, not a political act" was like saying "I didn't have sex with your wife, I just fucked her a couple of times".

That's the situation Iranian Christians are in. You can't be non-political as a member of a minority religion in a theocracy, because your faith itself has major political implications.

Word of mouth says they are at quite a high rate. Reports like this give such rumors increased credibility.

Almost Ali,

Oh dear. Really? John Bolton is fabulous, and I think he would do a great job (just imagine his first meeting with the likes of Ahmedinajad.) But as his first elective office? No matter how much we despise "career politicians", starting at the top just ain't gonna happen.

Yeah, what Rev said at 9:27pm. We have a Chinese exchange student staying with us, and--despite his moderately good English skills--he was completely unable to explain to us what the big deal with Fulan Gong was, in a way that made any sense to us. Some kind of disloyalty something something...

Sooner or later these people are going to be in another all out war with somebody. We shouldn't be appeasing them.

They already are. Iran is funding trips for Hezbollah memmbers to Venezuala (Chavez). They undergo a 6-month immersion where they learn to pass as Latino and then enter America with the rest of the illegal aliens.

WMDs. Coming soon to a city near you.

And of course, when NYC is decimated by Anthrax or Sarin or a dirty bomb, Obama will blame Palin for it.